Category Archives: Fantasy

First Experience with Dead Rising 4

Note: There are spoilers in this article.

Though Dead Rising 4 was released in December 2016, I was unable to play it until mid-March. I had to wait until it was made available for my favorite gaming hub, the Steam Network, before I could download it. Unlike Resident Evil 7, my resolve to stay spoiler-free until I could experience the game for myself was successful.

Like Resident Evil 7, I was certain that Dead Rising 4 would not run on my computer. I chose to test it anyway and was pleasantly surprised when it booted up – although the load time for the starting screen took a while. The only nitpicks I initially had were that shadows appear as distorted, blocky shapes, and there was a bit of a lag in the gameplay. But that’s nothing that ruined the experience for me. All I care about is that a game runs without crashing.

After the ending of Dead Rising 3 seemed to guarantee that there would be no more zombie outbreaks and that the story was over, the fourth game added another layer to the overall narrative. In a lot of ways, Dead Rising 4 goes back to the roots of the series – it features photojournalist Frank West as the lead protagonist, takes place in the town of Willamette after a zombie outbreak has started, and has an intriguing mystery at its core. It even lends some more depth to Dr. Barnaby, one of the antagonists in the original game who was responsible for starting the zombie epidemic in the first place.

One of the things I liked best about Dead Rising 4 is that, unlike its predecessors, there were no time constraints. Instead of rushing through the game to solve the mystery before the clock ran out, I took my time exploring and killing zombies to my heart’s content. I also love that the game brought back the option to dress the main character in a variety of wacky outfits, as well as create combo weapons and vehicles. To take it one step further, Frank has access to a piece of military tech called an Exo-suit that can amplify his speed and strength. In this outing, he throws cars at zombies to off them if he wants. So far, I haven’t made much use of the Exo-suits apart when the game makes it a mission objective to put one on. It is something to explore further.

While I encountered more than a few game glitches – my PC is old – nothing ruined the overall experience. The one that really got annoying was when I undertook a mission to take out all the zombies present inside a pool hall. Toward the end of the fight, the camera panned up to show a shot of some second story windows before a handful of the more aggressive zombies crashed through them; the camera angle remained fixed on the windows all through the ensuing fight and its aftermath. While I worked out a way to kill the remaining creatures regardless, I was unable to exit the building since I couldn’t face the door. Fortunately, this problem was corrected by loading the checkpoint given to me at the conclusion of the fight.

Apart from that glitch and the general lag in the gameplay, the other bugs I encountered regularly were seeing one or two zombies embedded inside a wall or walking into a room that is completely black. I couldn’t see anything even with night vision enabled inside these black rooms. While I enjoyed the game even with these glitches, I hope a newer, better computer will help eliminate them.

Overall, I liked the story developed for Dead Rising 4, but I also feel there are ways in which it could be better. For starters, the character of Vick, one of Frank’s journalism students, didn’t live up to her potential. In the opening chapter, I got the sense that she had a personal stake against the military group called Obscuris that was secretly creating and experimenting on zombies. Had Obscuris taken someone Vick cared about for their experiments? I was disappointed when this idea didn’t play out; Vick was simply a budding journalist out to write a prize-winning story.

I was also a bit disappointed with Calder, the “uber-zombie” hinted at during the first half of the game. I remember feeling a sense of dread as I chased him through a train yard filled with mangled, heavily dented cars and then into the sewers. I didn’t know what kind of monster to expect, but a highly intelligent former soldier decked out in an Exo-suit wasn’t quite it. What made it weirder was when Frank caught up with Calder, the latter was, for some unknown reason, hell-bent on destroying the research that created him.

I felt that Calder and his motives could have been fleshed out better. And if I had written the story, I would have had it so Vick and Calder were blood-related. That would have made for quite the dramatic climax.

The ending to the main game still had its share of drama. The final scene had Frank pulled from the rescue chopper by a horde of zombies and supposedly killed. However, there has been news of an expansion pack called Frank Rising that will continue the story and have Frank striving to find a cure for zombie-ism before he fully joins the ranks of the undead.

I don’t know if there are any revelations that would allow for another game in the series. Unless the company behind the Dead Rising franchise can come up with an intriguing, believable story for a fifth game, this may truly be the end of the road. Whatever the future holds, I’ve definitely enjoyed the ride so far!

Despite my enthusiasm for Dead Rising 4, the game got pushed to the side for about a week in favor of Mass Effect: Andromeda – more on that in my next blog.

First Experience with Resident Evil 7: Biohazard

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Note: There are spoilers in this article.

As far as immersing myself in a brand-new game goes, Resident Evil 7 proved to be an interesting experience. In the weeks leading up to its release, every new bit of information got me eager to begin playing. Though it would not feature any of the established characters in the series – with one possible exception – I thought it would be refreshing to play as newcomer Ethan Winters, a non-combatant in search of his wife, Mia, who was believed to be dead for three years.

As soon as I downloaded the game on the more advanced of my two computers, I booted it up eager to start playing. I was highly disappointed when the game crashed each time I tried to start it. After three unsuccessful attempts, I determined that I would likely have to wait until I got a newer and more state-of-the-art computer before I could delve into the world of Resident Evil 7.

Despite my determination to stay spoiler-free, I couldn’t resist watching YouTube videos detailing the game and all its secrets. While not the same as experiencing it first-hand, I still enjoyed the story, spooky atmosphere, and a few twists and turns along the way. And I began to imagine ways in which this new installment ties in with previous games in the series.

I was resigned to writing a critical essay about Resident Evil 7 without actually playing the game. But I was surprised when I found out on February 7^th that the game would run on my more substandard computer. I would liken it to trying to play a DVD with a VCR, but the game still ran all the way through without crashing. I’m not sure what inspired me to try and start it, but I’m glad I did.

There were however several glitches present that made it interesting, such as a porch swing that looked like it was having an epileptic fit or seeing Mia’s hair literally flapping all over the place during a speedboat ride. Perhaps the most disturbing glitch was seeing Ethan’s hands completely coated in blood before he’d even wandered into the dangerous house where much of the action takes place.

Examples of the game glitches encountered, and the perfect piece of toast in the bottom left.

In spite of the bugs, I still found the game enjoyable. I’m glad to have gotten a chance to play it myself. Since I’m someone who prefers to take their time and look around in detail, I observed quite a lot about the environment and what it tells about the characters. One thing that I found humorous during my exploration was a perfectly-preserved piece of toast that seemed quite out of place in the decayed, moldy plantation where the game is set.

The villains, like the hero, are also new to the Resident Evil series. In this outing, you must square off against the deranged Baker family – Jack, Marguerite, and their son, Lucas – and an evil genetically-engineered girl named Eveline who is capable of controlling people after she infects them with a mold-like virus. There are moments where the Bakers seem to act of their own accord, so I’m inclined to think that Eveline’s victims come around to her way of thinking after a lengthy exposure.

On the other hand, Mia seems capable of fighting Eveline’s control, though she was the first to be infected. This seems to suggest that Mia – and Jack and Marguerite’s daughter, Zoe – is more strong-willed or somewhat immune to the effects. To clarify, Mia was part of a team in charge of transporting Eveline from one science facility to another when the latter somehow escaped containment. This resulted in the destruction of the tanker they were aboard, which subsequently drifted into the bayou bordering the Baker’s home.

Not much is known about the Baker family and what their lives were like before Eveline entered the picture, but there are little things about their house or mannerisms that tell something of their respective backgrounds. For instance, Lucas is quite skilled at engineering according to the trophies in his bedroom, though his journal entries tell that he was a psychotic killer even before Eveline got to him. In addition, Marguerite’s biggest passion is cooking, but she gets offended because her meals, repulsive to normal people, are refused. It’s hard to guess at Jack’s background, but it is known he is a former Marine. Some of his hobbies may have included hunting or taxidermy.

You might ask what this story has to do with any of the previous games in the series, but I feel there are some interesting connections. Perhaps the biggest setup for this scenario is tied into what Derek Simmons, the high-ranking NSA agent and main antagonist of Resident Evil 6, proclaimed in his final hours: “You have no idea what would happen if I die!” As villainous as Simmons was – he did assassinate the U.S. President, after all – it is possible that he was holding a greater threat in check. Just maybe, his demise paved the way for the organization that created Eveline.

Another interesting connection between Resident Evil 7 and its predecessors is how closely the Baker plantation resembles the Spencer mansion from the very first game. A work order found in one of the plantation’s rooms reveals that the Bakers had hired an architecture firm named after the ill-fated George Trevor, the builder of the mansion. It’s curious why the Bakers chose George’s style and inclination to create puzzle-based rooms meant to hide secret passageways for their own house, but there may be a simple explanation for this. I think it’s possible the Bakers might somehow be related to the Trevor family; maybe they wanted to honor George’s vision.

There are also some oddities about this game that hint at a much larger picture. For one thing, it’s curious how or why such a large ship went unnoticed for three years. However, Ethan discovers some documentation inside a mine late in the game that indicates Lucas was somehow “freed” from Eveline’s control and was secretly monitoring her for the benefit of an unknown party. It would be quite the twist if Lucas were one of the good guys despite the insane death traps he stages for some of the characters taken hostage by his family.

Even more puzzling is the military team who comes to the aid of Ethan (and Mia if she survived) at the very end of the game. This team is aboard a helicopter that has an updated logo of the Umbrella Corporation, the corrupt pharmaceutical company responsible for starting the bioterrorism war. What’s weirder is that one of the soldiers introduces himself to Ethan as Redfield, and the closing credits show Redfield’s first name to be Chris.

I am unsure what to make of this ending, but my imagination is in overdrive and my mind is filled with countless questions. Is the Umbrella Corporation somehow back in play? Are they the good guys now? Is Chris Redfield, one of their long-standing opponents, really working for them, or is it just an imposter using his name? I am certain these questions will be answered once Resident Evil 7’s expansion pack titled Not a Hero comes out in the spring, but I will be anxiously awaiting some resolution until then.

What I like most about Resident Evil 7 is how it uses the formula made popular by the early games. There are puzzles you need to solve to advance through the house/game, limited inventory space that forces you to decide what to carry with you or store for later, and the requirement to save your ammo for when you really need it. I failed a bit at the last one and was down to only one Magnum bullet and a limited amount of flamethrower fuel for the final fight; as if that wasn’t bad enough, I got eaten whole by the last monster when I stupidly stopped firing for a couple seconds.

All things considered, I didn’t do too shabby for my first playthrough, but I was really struggling to survive my third fight with a mutated Jack Baker. Though I was sure I was going to get killed, I somehow managed to make it through in one piece. In the end, I only died twice in the whole game. And that was just on the easiest difficulty setting. I shudder to think what the hardest difficulty will be like, but I’m not one to shy away from a challenge.

My list of Top Ten Quirkiest Video Game Characters

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I’ve played dozens of different video games in my lifetime and have come to count hundreds of different characters as endearing. But there are also a handful that particularly stand out and whom I count as the most memorable. What follows is my list of the top ten characters who make me smile or laugh whenever they come to mind.

10) The Meeps (Quest for Glory)
Of the many quirky characters present in the first Quest for Glory game, these furry subterranean creatures are, in my opinion, the funniest. The player needs only to obtain a patch of green fur from them for a potion, but the game designers threw in a red herring on how to get the fur. The player has the option to try and attack them. But any attempt to do so bears a striking resemblance to a poorly-played game of Whack-A-Mole.

9) Kinzie Kensington (Saints Row 3 and 4; Saints Row: Gat out of Hell) – (spoiler alert)
Saints Row is a franchise revolving around a street gang that started off serious, but each new installment has since gotten more silly and over-the-top in a good way. I never played the first two games and am not even sure what drew me to the third one. But it is a series I have grown to love due to its many colorful characters. The one I found the most quirky — at least until the fourth game was released — was paranoid cyberhacker Kinzie Kensington. Of all the characters in Saints Row 3, I find her the most eccentric and interesting. What makes her stand out the most is her dual personality. At times, she comes off sweet and someone you just want to give a hug. And on the other hand, she is feisty and has one wicked mean streak. For instance, after Kinzie delivers a vicious beating to one of the antagonists in the fourth game, she rolls off him, adopts a serene Indian-style pose, and in a bubbly tone tells her friends, “I’m done.”

8) Special Agent Tanya Adams (Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2)
What I really enjoy about the Red Alert series is it takes place in an alternate history where Hitler was assassinated, the Holocaust never happened, and Soviet Russia became a more dangerous force to be reckoned with. What I love even more is the spunky female commando Tanya Adams (portrayed in the second game’s cinematics by actress Kari Wuhrer) who acts as a frontrunner and one-woman army against Soviet soldiers. She adds a unique energy to the roleplaying strategy game, and her gleeful battle cry of “Yeah, baby!” when she prepares to take out enemy infantry or take down nuclear silos is one of the main reasons I adore this game as much as I do.

7) Simon the Killer Ewok (Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds) – (spoiler alert)
Cheat codes have been included in video games ever since the early days in the seventies and eighties, and serve as a way to win with minimal effort. But I don’t know of very many games that feature a character who is only generated through use of a cheat code. Pressing enter and typing “SimonSays” in the game, Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds will give the player control of a single Ewok called Simon who can decimate any enemy army, soldiers and vehicles alike, all by himself. Call me crazy, but the majority of my time playing this game was spent delightedly watching Simon go to town against Imperial or Rebel forces.

Clockwise from top left – the Meeps, Paul, John Smethells, Yes Man (photo credits at end)

6) Conrad Verner (the Mass Effect trilogy)
Behind every great hero is a wannabe who strives to live up to the hero’s ideals. I’ve seen that formula used in countless stories, but the Mass Effect series puts an interesting spin on it by giving the wannabe delusions of grandeur. Conrad Verner’s antics, ranging from asking for inclusion in an elitist military unit to unwittingly promoting a terrorist organization as the “good” guys, and Shepherd’s reactions to those antics get me chuckling every time. As with many of the characters in the trilogy, his survival at certain points throughout the three games hinges on choices made by the lead protagonist, Commander Shepherd. The sci-fi video game trilogy has tons of interesting characters to interact with, but there is something about lovable loser Conrad that adds an extra special element to the overall story.

5) Potato-Glados (Portal 2) – (spoiler alert)
The basic premise of the Portal games is that you’re playing as a character being used as a proverbial guinea pig in a science facility and made to solve logistical puzzles as you wander from one testing chamber to the next. And all the while, an insane artificial intelligence (A.I.) is monitoring and trying to dictate your every move. Through all of the first game and half of the second one, that A.I. is Glados, until another A.I. called Wheatley conspires to take her place as the governing source of the facility. Though Wheatley turns evil once he has ultimate power in his grasp, he still turns the tables on Glados in a very amusing way – by attaching her CPU and voice modulator to a common potato. Potato Glados’ lack of mobility and desire to regain control causes her to team up with the protagonist she previously tried to kill. What I find most hysterical about Portal 2 is that you literally have a root vegetable as an ally for half of the game.

4) John Smethells, the “omniscient” steward (Titanic: Adventure out of Time)
I’ve seen many games offer a tutorial to give the player a sense of what buttons to use. But the way the period-piece mystery game, Titanic: Adventure out of Time, presents it is very comical. Minutes into the game, your protagonist is greeted by a steward named John Smethells inside a nicely rendered replica of one of the ship’s deluxe rooms. Answering yes to his question on whether you need help finding your way around causes him to break character and start talking about which buttons on the keyboard are needed to move, interact with other characters, or pick up important objects. What further shatters the immersive experience is he also gives you instructions on how to register the game online. The fact that all this info about computers and the Internet comes from a guy dressed like a 1912 ship steward couldn’t be more hysterical.

3) Yes Man (Fallout: New Vegas)
Of the four characters to ally with when it comes to seizing control of the casino strip in Fallout: New Vegas, Yes Man is by far my favorite. Though he is a dangerous robot called a Securitron who has been reprogrammed by the duplicitous casino kingpin Benny to stage a coup, Yes Man’s allegiance is prone to shift to anyone who interacts with him. As Yes Man cheerfully puts it when first met by the main protagonist, “I was programmed to be helpful and answer any questions I was asked. I guess no one bothered to restrict who I answer questions for. That was probably pretty dumb, huh?” The fact that he’s stuck with a permanent smiley face and sounds so cheery even when he says something particularly dark really cracks me up.

2) Muggy (Fallout: New Vegas – Old World Blues)
When the player ventures to an area called Big Mountain in the Old World Blues expansion pack, he or she find the main hub of a science facility at its core houses a number of everyday appliances given artificial intelligence and unique personalities. While other A.I.s in the hub, such as the toaster or jukebox, are entertaining, the mobile obsessive-compulsive little robot called Muggy steals the show. Like Yes Man, Muggy is a Securitron, but is much smaller than any other one found in the game. In addition to his small stature, Muggy has a permanent cartoonish teacup displayed on his face monitor. He was deliberately programmed to be obsessed with cleaning the ceramic cups and occasionally curses the scientist who made him this way. Much as he might hate his compulsion, he is doomed to drone on and on about it. Best quote: “Mugs, Mugs, Mugs. Mugs, Mugs. Mug-a-mug. Mug-a-mug. Mugs! God, why can’t I stop singing this f***ing song?!”

Last but not least, here is my all-time favorite quirkiest video game character:

1) Paul (Saints Row 4)
Much of the plot for Saints Row 4 entails the systematic destruction of a virtual world built to enslave humanity. This task falls into the hands of the leader of a street gang. Step one: the leader must rescue his or her teammates from each one’s individual simulated hell. Of all the virtual “nightmares” encountered, the one built for Pierce Washington takes the cake. This particular simulation kicks off with a battle against human-sized energy drinks – or rather humans dressed up as purple aluminum cans. And just when you think it can’t get any crazier, in comes Paul, a gargantuan soda can that roars and has the ability to shoot laser beams from his eyes… It’s hard to find the words to do this character or battle justice, so here is a YouTube video of that, courtesy of one of my favorite gamers out there, RadBrad.

If you enjoyed this list, feel free to leave a comment below. And be sure to tune in next month for “My Top Ten Favorite Badass Video Game Characters.”

Photo Credits:
The Meeps
Yes Man
Steward
Paul

Dead Rising: Not Your Typical Zombie Game

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The video game franchises of Fallout and Resident Evil are among my all-time favorites, but they are far from the only series I absolutely love. I would say that what I enjoy most about story-driven video games is that they offer a departure from everyday conventional life. My adventures have ranged from uniting a dozen different alien races to combat a common threat (the Mass Effect trilogy), battling dragons, giants, and other fantasy medieval beasts while trying to prevent the end of the world (Skyrim), and finding that manipulating the fabric of time comes with a steep price (Life is Strange).

Yet there are very few video games that offer an escape from reality to the extent that the Dead Rising series does.

My first experience with this series was with the first Dead Rising for the WII system. While that version is “watered down” and doesn’t have the same amount of content as its Xbox 360 counterpart, it is still a very enjoyable game. The basic scenario is that photojournalist Frank West gets a tip that strange events taking place in a small Colorado town called Willamette. He has a friend transport him inside the town by helicopter to avoid the military barricades on the ground. When some army copters show up to chase him and his pilot out, Frank jumps onto the roof of Willamette’s shopping mall rather than lose the chance for a possible award-winning story.

Upon making it down to one of the main entrances for the mall, Frank discovers a group of survivors building a barricade to keep a horde of zombies from getting in. This plan quickly fails when one batty old woman spots her beloved poodle outside and opens the doors in an attempt to rescue her pet. How she managed this with the other survivors failing to stop her is anyone’s guess. Frank is one of the few people to escape the zombie swarm and make it to the mall’s security office before the door is welded shut by a surviving guard.

My favorite ensemble for Frank in
Dead Rising 2: Off the Record

The remainder of the game entails Frank using an air duct to get back out into the mall to rescue stray survivors, battle zombies and the occasional psychopath (more on that later), and uncover the truth of what started the epidemic, or strange events, plaguing Willamette. And that’s where the real fun begins.

The primary thing that sets Dead Rising apart from other zombie apocalypse games is that the game’s emphasis is on making the overall experience more comedic than horrific. Aside from the clothing to change into and food needed to replenish health, any object that can be picked up by Frank can be used as a weapon, however unconventional. This includes — but is not limited to – guns, wooden benches, sledgehammers, trash cans, cash registers, mannequins, hangers, and a stack of CDs.

Another element that adds to the overall fun factor is that Frank can swap his own clothes for one of the many outfits available throughout the mall. The player even has the option to have him wear a woman’s dress or a banana hammock while running around killing zombies.

The third staple of the game and of the series in general, is that the player must also face off against certain people labeled psychopaths. For the most part, this means either people who are using the outbreak as an excuse to engage in criminal activity or ordinary civilians who don’t cope well with the end of the world as they know it. Most of them also add to the humor element present in the game. My personal favorite is the supermarket manager encountered early on.

While Frank escapes Willamette in the best possible ending out of multiple conclusions, the military fails to keep the epidemic from spilling out into the world. And that’s where the setup for the second game comes in. Dead Rising 2 takes place in the fictitious Fortune City, an area consisting largely of casinos and shopping centers. Fortune City also capitalizes on the epidemic by making zombie killing a spectator sport in a gladiator-type arena. A new outbreak occurs when someone deliberately sets loose the zombies to be used in the fights from confinement.

The most interesting thing about Dead Rising 2 is that there are two separate versions of it, each existing as its own game. This one introduces a down-on-his-luck motocross rider named Chuck Greene as the hero. The other, a spinoff subtitled Off the Record, sees the return of Frank as the lead protagonist. There are so many differences between the two that each tells a story unique to Chuck or Frank. One thing that remains the same is that each protagonist strives to expose the mastermind behind the outbreak and bring him or her to justice.

Dead Rising 2 retains all the elements that made its predecessor so humorous, but also embellishes on them. There are three times as many objects to use as a weapon than those present in the first game. And two objects can now be combined to create a more carnage-inducing, often wacky means of killing zombies, with the exception of the beer hat.

In my opinion, the psychopaths encountered in the second game are even more comical than those in the original. My personal favorite is Carl Schiff, the postal worker who is determined to deliver the mail even in light of the outbreak. His dialogue is dependent on if one is playing as Chuck or Frank, but both encounters are equally entertaining.

Dead Rising 3 brings the overall story full circle by tying up loose ends from the first and second games. The protagonist this time is a young mechanic named Nick Ramos who finds himself at the center of yet another outbreak. Nick discovers that he may hold the key to eradicating the zombie epidemic once and for all.

Like Frank and Chuck before him, Nick can change into any outfit present in the game. While Dead Rising 3 ups the fun factor by eliminating the need to create combo weapons at workbenches and introducing combo vehicles, it lacks humor in one area. I know I’m not alone based on reviews I’ve read find Dead Rising 3 psychopaths more off-putting than entertaining. There are fewer of them in this game, and most are made to represent one of the seven deadly sins. Suffice to say, the one for gluttony is particularly nasty.

The other downside, as with the first two games, is that the player is racing the clock. To get the best possible ending, the mystery behind the outbreak must be solved within a set amount of time. As much as I love the series, the games don’t allow for much wandering to your heart’s content without getting a “game over.” And with the ending of the third game having such finality about it, this seemed to be it for the franchise.

I recently heard news of a fourth game due out in December 2016, and I couldn’t be more excited. From what I’ve read, Dead Rising 4 will breathe new life into the series, no pun intended. Frank is set to return as the main character, and the franchise is literally going back to its roots. The action will take place in a rebuilt shopping mall in Willamette, introduce a new breed of zombies unrelated to the ones featured in the original trilogy, and will for once ditch the timer. The notion of having all the time in the world to explore the environment while solving the mystery at the core of the story has me anxious to begin playing this game.

As long as it retains or surpasses the hilariousness that the franchise is most famous for, all the better.

First Experiences with Fallout 4: Nuka World

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